title: breathe slow
pairing: eventual SasuSaku.
dedication: To me playing the Wii just as soon as I post this.
notes: Thanks for the reviews guys! And, to assure those that are terrified, there is, and won't be, nothing between Ino and Sasuke. It's platonic, at most. Just coz I like writing different things and Sasuke and Ino would make good friends, in my head. Stfu, my logic makes sense.
x
breatheslow
They sat around a fire, tension swallowing them whole.
Sasuke picked at the fire with a thick-thin branch, eyes glued on the red-orange-yellow-blue of the flames. Sasuke loved fire; he's loved it since he was a kid. It was, granted so much smaller and less important, one of the reasons why he had been so set on learning his clan's Fireball jutsu. It was nonexistent to the real reason why he almost killed himself to learn the jutsu.
But, well... Sasuke didn't want to think about all that.
He poked and prodded at the flames, bolts of adrenaline running through his veins as the flames grew larger.
"We were going to kill you," Ino murmured, curled up on one of the three logs surrounding the fire. "Us... The nine of us. We were so set on it, too. We figured we'd stop you before it was too late. Shit like that, you know? I..." She grinned, bitterly, "I cried, when the decision was made. You were my friend, through it all; considered you as such even if you didn't. But... I wasn't crying for you, for myself. It was because of Naruto and Sakura."
Sasuke was used to people trying to kill him all the time. Enemies, idiots, politically influenced people... All of them wanted him dead at some point, if not still. Which was why he didn't even flinch at what Ino said. Surprised, he was; but he was surprised because Konoha's rookies - his generation; his "friends" had been planning on killing him.
"Coz they still believe in you," Ino shrugged, blue eyes on the dancing flames. To her left, Sai remained quiet and sketched in a sketchbook. "I know even now they still do; Sakura just tries to hide it. Don't blame her since, you know, you tried to kill her." She looked up, then, a light glare in her eyes. "I don't get how you try to kill those close to you; admit it, they were close to you. What are you trying to prove?"
"Shut up," Sasuke said, voice low and hoarse. "Shut up, Yamanaka. You're annoying."
"So are you."
He looked up at her, a heavy glare in his eyes. "You don't know me."
"Maybe so,"she said, holding her chin up in defiance. "But Naruto and Sakura do."
Sasuke shook his head, deeming it impossible to talk to the loud blond, and settled back into picking at the fire.